Valley of the Dead (8 page)

Chapter
14

In the third circle am I of the rain

Eternal, maledict, and cold, and heavy;

Its law and quality are never new.

Dante,
Inferno
, 6.7-9

They rode deeper into the valley, though the bright sunlight did not last long. The day turned overcast almost as soon as they left the dying woman’s house. It was not the violent storm of earlier in the morning, but just a solid, even blanket of clouds that hung over them, lifeless and still. The sun was now only an indistinct area of lighter grey in the oppressive mass.

After the four of them had been riding for some time, the trees gave way to another area that had been cleared for human cultivation and toil. There were no signs of people in the fields this morning. Dante noticed the ground was quite wet here, almost swampy, with puddles here and there, both in the road and fields. The water in the puddles looked oddly dark, as did the mud here. Perhaps such dark soil was good for the crops, Dante thought, more fertile – though he had trouble imagining this place full of plants and life. He gazed up at the lighter spot in the clouds, where he knew the sun was. Everything was still. Even the stagnant clouds didn’t seem to move. No birds, no sounds, no motion besides the miserable creeping of the four of them. The storm was preferable to the silent dread of this place.

Ahead, a wall stretched across their path for quite some distance to either side. It looked to be masonry, about the height of two men.

“What’s that?” Dante asked.

“The settlement furthest up the valley,” Radovan replied. “It’s fairly big. The mining and lumber here are quite valuable and attract lots of people.”

“Why do they have a wall?” Dante asked. “The last town didn’t.”

“These people live far from civilization,” Adam said. “We have our lake to protect the monastery, but they need a wall, for beyond this town there are only wild things and savage men, even in the best of times.”

Dante considered the situation. “Will we have to ride around it? It would slow us down a lot.”

“We might,” Adam said. “There will be no choice if they’ve locked the gate and refuse us entry. But let us see if the gate is open, and perhaps we can go straight through. Of course, if the gate is open, then they must not be aware of the danger. We should warn them.”

They went a bit further before Radovan raised his hand and they stopped. He pointed ahead to some reeds growing along the side of the road in the swampy ground. They rustled, though there was no wind. Dante strained to hear something more, voices or the braying of animals or the moan of the dead, but there was nothing.

Dante followed Radovan and Adam in dismounting. This time Bogdana agreed to stay with the horses while they moved forward on foot to investigate. The three men had gotten quite close to the stand of reeds before they saw the source of the rustling. The tall stalks had been concealing four shapes: one human figure lying on the ground, with three others kneeling around it. The prone figure was a big man. He had been torn open in several places. The three kneeling figures were two boys and a woman. There was blood all over the four of them, spattered on the reeds, and more of it flew off their hands as they tore pieces from the man’s body.

The boys were even younger than the two children Bogdana and Dante had killed at the river crossing. The woman had her back to Dante. She was kneeling near the man’s midsection, and from the motions and sounds she was making, it was clear she was pulling the man’s organs out and eating them. The two children growled at her, apparently displeased she was getting the better share of the food. She snarled back and swatted at the one boy who was struggling with the tough sinews of the man’s thigh, trying to claw out a piece of it with his fingernails. Dante watched as the other boy, near the man’s head, bent down further, placing his hands on the ground and leaning down to tear into the dead man’s neck with his teeth. As the child rose back up to a kneeling posture, he held one end of a long strip of flesh in his bloody mouth. The other end was still attached to the dead man, and the undead boy thrashed his head around like a dog would, till the morsel snapped and he sucked it into his mouth like pasta. As he did so, he looked right at Dante with red, rat-like eyes, though he made no move to get up or attack, but slowly chewed the ghoulish mouthful with something like a half smile.

Dante could feel his head going light and feared he might faint. He lowered his gaze, breathing deep and feeling himself shake slightly. He longed not only for the fury of the storm, but for the previous silence, because the slurping and smacking sounds from the three undead people assailed him like cudgels hammering his head. Not just the outside of his skull, but the sounds rattled around inside, giving wet, slapping blows to his brain. He looked up to see Adam and Radovan right by him, apparently watching him to see if he were going to fall over.

“Now we really are in hell, aren’t we?” Dante asked in a soft, dry whisper.

Adam shook his head, though he kept an eye on the three kneeling figures. “We live our whole lives right on the edge of infernal places, right where we can see, hear, and touch them at any moment. And, more importantly, where they can touch us. You should know that. There are foretastes of blessedness, and there are foretastes of damnation. Today you will see a great many of the latter in a very short time. You would take God’s blessings, and then refuse to look upon evil? Or perhaps even resent that it exists? Are you like Job’s wife? I didn’t think you so ungrateful, brother.”

Dante slowly took in the small, spritely man, dragging his gaze up and down him. Adam had an irrepressible liveliness about him, the bright spark of reason and intellect, but at times like this it seemed to Dante it burned with a cold and comfortless brilliance. Nonetheless his words made Dante look up at the featureless sky, as he tried in this forsaken hell to think of any foretastes of blessedness.

He thought of the warmth of Beatrice’s smile, and also of the beauty of her eyes, remembering they too could at times burn as brightly, coldly, and distantly as Adam’s wisdom. He thought of the babbling laughter of his two daughters, who could make him smile more easily and comfortably than the intimidating Beatrice ever could. His children held the promise of the future, full of unquestioning love, rather than the threat of rejection or reprimand. He reached farther back in his memory than he had in a long time, retrieving an image of his mother at his bedside when he was very young and sick nearly to death. Although he knew intellectually he had been in great pain during the time he was now recollecting, all that remained now for him to contemplate was the love and devotion shining from her face, the compassion pouring from her gaze even more tangibly than the tears she shed.

He brought his gaze down and glanced over at Bogdana, who carried within herself another blessing, though it chilled Dante to recall his horrible promise to her to preserve and protect that blessing, no matter what horrors were necessary in order to do so. He nodded, and although it still made no sense that blessing and suffering should be so intertwined, he felt a little calmer and less despairing at their strange confluence.

He looked past Adam at the three dead people still feeding, still oblivious to the three living men, gorging their apparently limitless bellies and empty minds with as much blood and flesh as they could rend and tear from either the body or from each other’s greedy hands.

“Why don’t they attack us?” he asked.

Adam seemed to hear Dante’s voice was more resolute and less pained. “Why do you think?”

Dante considered them in as detached and objective a manner as he could. Although he could keep himself from shaking or weeping or running away, the nausea was unavoidable at the sight of what they were doing to another human being’s body. “They don’t realize we’re a danger, so they go on eating. They only kill in order to feed, so they won’t attack us until they’re done with their present victim.”

Adam nodded. “Exactly. They are both more and less human than we are, more and less evil. They cannot kill for pleasure, or honor, or even hate. If only all men were as they are, in this one respect. But they are so full of hunger, so completely full of emptiness, they cannot think of anything else – not even self-preservation. And their emptiness will never be full. They will never stop on their own.”

“I understand,” Dante said. “But if it would not be considered a kind of ingratitude, I would ask not to have to kill a child again, since I already helped kill two yesterday.”

“That is not ingratitude, my son. That is decency,” Adam said, and he and Radovan moved to either side, to stand behind the two children as Dante stepped forward and stood behind the woman.

They left the woman and the two boys slumped forward on the body they had been desecrating, though Dante knew the three who had been eating were far more tainted and defiled than the one they had eaten. But now at least all four of them were finally and truly dead, and death was sometimes a blessing, as Brother Adam’s strange theology would have it.

After Dante got on his horse and they moved forward, Bogdana leaned over and touched his shoulder. He could not bear to look at her, to sully her beauty by gazing on it with the same eyes that had just beheld such monstrous, revolting things. He only let himself feel her presence and sympathy through her light touch, as he looked down at the ugly, nearly black mud sucking at the horses’ hooves.

Chapter
15

Howl the rain maketh them like unto dogs;

One side they make a shelter for the other;

Oft turn themselves the wretched reprobates.

Dante,
Inferno
, 6.19-21

As they approached the town walls, they could see that the gates were open. Not only open, they also seemed to be abandoned. The entrance to the town was as desolate as the fields through which they had been riding. They stopped just outside the gates to survey the situation.

“Go through?” Radovan asked.

“It’d save us time,” Adam said. “Perhaps the people have left already.” Just then, from somewhere inside the town they heard a cheer, followed by what sounded like singing, though it was too far away to make out clearly. “Well, then there are still people here. We need to warn them. Clearly if they’re singing, with their gate open and unguarded, they must not know what’s going on.”

They proceeded through the gate, past deserted houses and shops. Everything was in a violent disarray, with carts spilled over in the street, and various items – tools, implements, broken pottery, and glass – scattered on the ground. There were some dark brown splotches and burn marks on the ground and on many of the walls. Some of the windows were smashed, but most were boarded up. Dante caught the metallic scent of blood, and the heavy, stinging, malignant smell of smoldering embers that had been left to fester. He saw nothing move, however, and no fires raging or blood flowing, so they kept moving forward.

The cheering sound returned, followed by laughter, then the indistinct murmuring of a crowd. All of them flinched and bristled at the sound of an animal roaring in pain or rage, but this was drowned out by laughter, so they kept going.

They came out into a more open area, where they finally saw the crowd they had heard. Several dozen men were there, gathered around long tables. There were no women or children in sight. Most of the men were standing, though several were lolling on the ground; some of the prone figures appeared immobile. There were many barrels on the tables, along with various foods, and nearby three boars were spitted over low fires. Here the smells were slightly more savory than what had greeted Dante so far in this town. Although it was still impossible for him to consider food after what he’d just seen, even he could appreciate the sweet but heavy aroma coming from the roasting meat. It was an irresistible kind of pull to anyone’s senses, even if their minds rebelled unnaturally against it.

But the pleasant smell was more than offset by the other, animalistic scents that came with several days of debauchery – spilled beer and wine, wasted food left to rot, and even men’s urine and vomit. Such animal detritus lay all over the ground, pounded into the dark, wet mud by hundreds of feet until all of it was mixed together into a sickening, grey slop. Those men still conscious waded through such filth carelessly, as they grabbed up more food or guzzled down more drink, while those who were groggy or passed out wallowed in it without shame.

Beyond the men and tables, the ground sloped down into a large indentation, like a pit. In it there were two poles erected. They were much thicker than the stake Dante had seen the woman tied to the other day. Two bears were tied to one of these. Both of them were fairly small, but one was obviously still a cub. The other was probably its mother, judging by how it stayed close to the smaller animal and seemed to be shielding it. The rope holding the cub was tied to the one holding the mother, and the mother’s rope was tied to the pole. To the other pole a large dog was tied; it strained against its bonds, sometimes moving close to the bears to bark at them, sometimes running to the other side to menace those of the crowd who stood close to the bear pit, shouting and laughing at the tormented animals. All three animals were bloodied, with gashes on the faces and sides, and patches of fur torn from their abused bodies. The bodies of several dead dogs were scattered around the pit as well, some bent in such a way that their backs were clearly broken, some with their throats ripped out, some with their entrails hanging out, victims of the cruelty of man and the savage power of beasts.

Some of the men closer to Dante and his companions had now noticed them. “Eh, what have we here?” one drawled, as the group of drunks staggered toward them. He was bigger than the others, with a thick, black beard and hair, and perhaps slightly less drunk than most of his companions. He leered at Bogdana. “Oooh, you brought us a lovely little mother bird, I see. I like the way you wrap your legs around that horse, darling. Care to spread them for me, before we all die? Can’t do any harm.”

“She’s so big, I’m afraid something would grab me if I stuck it to her!” shouted another drunk, causing the crowd to roar with laughter.

The laughter died down as Bogdana pulled back on the reins and her horse reared up, then it took two steps back. “Pigs!” she shouted. “Why do you have no sense?”

Dante and Radovan both pulled their horses to one side to get between her and the crowd, which gave way before them. Both men also drew their swords. “What is wrong with you?” Radovan shouted at them. “This isn’t the time for such foolishness.”

“There’s never a time for acting like beasts, but that won’t stop them,” Dante muttered.

The crowd backed up at the threat of harm. “Easy, strangers,” said the man who had first spoken. “No need to spoil our fun, is there? Like I said, no harm in some fun before we all die. Isn’t that what the Good Book tells us? ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’ We were just offering to make merry with this fine lady.” The crowd chuckled, though much more restrained than before. “And it’s not very Christian of you not to share, I’m thinking.” The crowd grumbled some agreement, but despite their numbers, the way they tottered and laughed and retched, Dante hardly felt threatened by them, just disgusted.

Adam still seemed to think common sense and self-interest would work, though Dante doubted it would have any more effect than trying to argue biblical interpretation or Christian morality with such men. “Friends,” Adam began. “The dead have obviously been here. Perhaps you fought them off the first time, but there will be more, and the army right behind them, to destroy you all. Surely you can see that. Please, flee – either to escape the army or to beg their mercy.. Please do it and give up this madness.”

The crowd was already losing interest in them, going back to the barrels and bottles and platters that held more reliable and less contentious distractions. “Ah, some bookish, churchly, old fop and a couple of loons with pig stickers. Begone!” Black beard waved them off as he turned away. “Not worth getting my nose bloodied for a knocked up skirt like her anyway. Better just to drink away the memory of skirts, and children, and work, and dead people walking around. Right boys?” The crowd cheered at this. Black beard raised a tankard. “Here’s to dulling the pain. The only thing fit for a day like today! Or any other!” The crowd roared even louder, then Dante heard a flute from somewhere in the crowd, and they broke out into song again. This time Dante was close enough to make out the words:

Oh Fiddler’s Green is a lovely place,

Where no scolds stop you from stuffing your face!

The weather’s always fine, there’s never a storm.

And everything’s beautiful – no rust and no worm!

And work? What work? There’s nothing to do!

Except eat fine dainties and drink the best brew!

There’s a river of wine, and trees that drip brandy.

And under each tree – a wench with a fig sweet as candy!

So if I’ve been laid low by Jehovah or some spirit unclean,

Then just look for me, friends, on Fiddler’s Green!

The song degenerated into random laughter and shouted obscenities, accompanied by the sound of smashing tables and glasses, as the newcomers were forgotten completely and the men returned to what they did best and most cheerfully with their lives.

As Dante pulled the reins to the left to get his horse moving forward, he looked over to Bogdana. He was aghast to see her off her horse, leading it by the reins and making her way toward the crowd.

“What the hell are you doing?” he said, pulling his horse back the other way to get closer to her.

She’d taken another step. Now Dante noticed an unconscious man on the ground not far from her, a generous shank of roasted pig held across his chest. Bogdana nimbly lunged for the food, snatched it out of the man’s hands, then turned and swung herself back on to her horse, before any of the semi-conscious members of the crowd took a renewed interest in her. She turned her horse and came up next to Dante, biting into the meat as she went, pink juices welling up out of it and on to her lips.

“What were you thinking?” he scolded her. Seeing her ripping off the glistening, greasy meat with her teeth nearly made him gag. “How the hell can you eat now?”

She chewed as she eyed him, tilting her head down a little and cocking an eyebrow. “You are an exceptionally kind man,” she said. “And I think a very smart one, too. But I know for certain you have never been pregnant, and you can have no idea what roasting meat smells like to me right now, and how it makes me feel. So please, just look away if it bothers you, and let me eat.”

Dante looked at her eyes, which were as stern and as beautiful as Beatrice’s, but much more simple and direct. They filled him with a different kind of strength. Not the strength of wonder and awe, but of appreciation and a kind of freedom, so long as he could look into them without noticing the animal leg, which she was so savagely tearing into. He could just manage this trick, if he held his head up and squinted a bit, which he gladly did, so as not to retch or lose courage.

Over to Dante’s left, Radovan said, “Let’s go,” just before several long, high-pitched screams of fear and pain assailed them from the far side of the crowd.